


Letters from the Front

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: 1940s, Gen, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2019-09-16 16:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16957833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: Maggie kept the most recent letter under the counter, too, because folks had a habit of dropping by to find out just where little Stevie Rogers was going next. (Not so little anymore, according to the recruiting posters, according to Ira Clearfield who swore he’d seen Steve pick up a motorcycle and three showgirls when he was whisked through Madison Square Garden without even staying long enough to spend the night.)





	Letters from the Front

**Author's Note:**

> dhrachth asked: For fic, I'd love to see something with Post-Serum!Steve interacting with people he knew from Brooklyn. It just seems kinda weird to me how, other than Bucky, it's as if Steve didn't know a single person pre-WW2.
> 
> I also don’t have a lot for this, because in my head Steve hits the road for bond collection pretty quickly, so I don’t know that he’d see anybody in person post-serum. (Unless it’s post-ice, but since I’m not writing post-ice, I assume you meant c.1943.) That said:

“Got another package!” Dick shouted, coming into the pharmacy with his letterbag slung over one shoulder and his postman’s cap cocked on his bald head. “Where’s Maggie? Feels like Rogers sent another spoon.”

Maggie’s husband, Bill Harrigan - the owner of Harrigan’s Pharmaceuticals - waved a hand toward the back, nearly caught his granddaughter in the nose when she scampered off the stool in a tangle of elbows, knees and curly red hair. “I’ll get her!” Melly shrieked, clattering behind the counter and through the swinging doors into the back. “Grams! Mr. Belton’s got another letter from Steve!” Dick and Bill winced - Melly’s excitement could shatter glass. “He says there’s a _spoon_!”

This spoon was from San Francisco, this time. Maggie put it on the tray with the others, under the glass counter where everyone who came in could see. Melly reorganized the tray at least twice a week, couldn’t decide if the decorative silver spoons should go in alphabetical order - Boston to Washington - or in the order Steve Rogers had mailed them as the Army sent him parading around the US.

Maggie kept the most recent letter under the counter, too, because folks had a habit of dropping by to find out just where little Stevie Rogers was going next. (Not so little anymore, according to the recruiting posters, according to Ira Clearfield who swore he’d seen Steve pick up a motorcycle and three showgirls when he was whisked through Madison Square Garden without even staying long enough to spend the night.)

“He says he’s on the next ship to London,” Maggie told Mrs. Cho, reading aloud for her and the three other customers listening in. “Says they’re talking about sending him to perform for the soldiers, just like Bing Crosby!”

“Aw, hell,” young Irv Gold muttered, rolling his eyes like he was fifty and not fifteen. “Those poor suckers. Rogers can’t even _take_ a joke - he sure as heck can’t tell one!”

“Maybe he sings,” Melly retorted, her chin in her hands as she peered dreamily at the USO poster with Steve that Bill had pinned on the wall. Maggie - who had heard Steve sing in church, whenever the boy hadn’t lost his voice to pneumonia or the flu or asthma - winced and hoped for the soldiers’ sake that Steve Rogers stuck to picking up motorcycles and pinup girls.

“Does it say when he’s coming home?” Mrs. Cho wondered, squinting at the letter from where she hunched over her cane. Steve and James had picked up her groceries every week, before James had been drafted and Steve had joined the war.

Maggie shrugged and shook her head, glanced unwillingly at the three blue stars hanging in the window at the front of their shop, Melly’s dad and his brothers - all three of Maggie’s boys away with the war.

“He doesn’t say,” she said, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he did say, because Maggie knew the Army didn’t like to let its recruits go, and little Steve Rogers had spent so much time getting _into_ the war that Maggie couldn’t see the boy wanting to come home. “Says he’s hoping to run into James, once he gets to the front, that he’ll drag the boy on stage with him once he does.”

She doesn’t tell Mrs. Cho that Steve had asked if there was any word from his friend, asked them to check with Mrs. Barnes to see if James had sent any letters for Steve. He’d been asking for months, now, twelve letters and ten spoons and Maggie didn’t bother checking with Maureen Barnes, anymore, because she already knew that there was no word from James.

No point in telling Steve that, though. The boy might be able to pick up a motorcycle, now, but one Irish youngster couldn’t stop the war and bring all the soldiers home. (Maggie brushed her fingers across the scrap of fabric with her youngest son’s star, Jimmy eighteen and drafted just the month before, thought of how Steve had gazed at James’s uniform with a different sort of star in his eyes. One boy couldn’t stop a war - but Maggie suspected that little Steve Rogers might just be willing to try.)


End file.
